How Much Does Injection Molding Cost?

If you are looking for the plastic molding parts for your new project, I believe the most important thing you want to know what will be the cost for the plastic mold and injection molding parts. Because all of this cost will affect your project going smoothly and success or failure. To carefully check this before you are running a new project if the project fails you will lose lots of money and time.

Let me give you some idea to help you understand plastic mold and plastic injection molding cost, this will save your time for your new development products.

The other easy way to understand those costs for your new project will be sending us your 3D part design or sample pictures, and tell us your requirements, like material for each part? Estimate the number of parts per time? Any special surface requirement to the visible side?

We will send you the best competitive price, we could offer the lowest mold cost $550, molding part cost $0.1, you could have this as a reference for your product and market research, welcome to contact us by [email protected]

Plastic Injection Molding Cost Guiding Tips

There are meanly four parts of cost: Plastic Material Cost, Molding Production Cost, Plastic Mold Cost, Part Color Cost, let us explain those four mean costs one by one.

Plastic Material Cost

First, the plastic material cost is determined by the weight of material that is required and the unit price of that material. The weight of the material is a result of the part volume and material density; however, the part’s maximum wall thickness can also play a role. The weight of material that is required includes the material that fills the channels of the mold. The size of those channels, and hence the amount of material, is largely determined by the thickness of the part, the selection of the material affects the unit part price as well, a different type of plastic material has a different price, for example, PP material is a totally different price than ABS material, so the material cost for plastic part includes two parts, one is the weight of the material, one is the type of material for the plastic part.

Second, the injection molding production cost is primarily calculated from the hourly rate and the cycle time. The hourly rate is proportional to the size of the injection moulding machine being used, so it is important to understand how the part design affects machine selection. Injection molding machines are typically referred to by the tonnage of the clamping force they provide. The required clamping force is determined by the projected area of the part and the pressure with which the material is injected. Therefore, a larger part will require a larger clamping force, and hence a more expensive machine. Also, certain materials that require high injection pressures may require higher tonnage machines. The size of the part must also comply with other machine specifications, such as clamp stroke, platen size, and shot capacity.

Injection Molding Production cost

The cycle time can be broken down into the injection time, cooling time, and resetting time. By reducing any of these times, the production cost will be lowered. The injection time can be decreased by reducing the maximum wall thickness of the part and the part volume. The cooling time is also decreased for lower wall thicknesses, as they require less time to cool all the way through. Several thermodynamic properties of the material also affect the cooling time. Lastly, the resetting time depends on the machine size and the part size. A larger plastic part will require larger motions from the machine to open, close, and eject the part, and a larger machine requires more time to perform these operations.

Plastic Mold Cost

Third, the plastic mold cost has two main components – the mold base and the machining of the cavities. The cost of the mold base is primarily controlled by the size of the part’s envelope. A larger plastic part requires a larger, more expensive mold base. The cost of machining the cavities is affected by nearly every aspect of the part’s geometry. The primary cost driver is the size of the cavity that must be machined, measured by the projected area of the cavity (equal to the projected area of the part and projected holes) and its depth. Any other elements that will require additional machining time will add to the cost, including the feature count, parting surface, side-cores, lifters, unscrewing devices, tolerance, and surface roughness.

The quantity of parts also impacts the plastic mold cost. A larger production quantity will require a higher class mold that will not wear as quickly. The stronger mold material results in a higher mold base cost and more machining time.

One final consideration is the number of side-action directions, which can indirectly affect the cost. The additional cost for side-cores is determined by how many are used. However, the number of directions can restrict the number of cavities that can be included in the mold. For example, the mold for a part that requires three side-action directions can only contain two cavities. There is no direct cost added, but it is possible that the use of more cavities could provide further savings.

Forth, the plastic molding color is also cost effection to the molded parts, normally does not have too much effect, but this is still depending on which parts color do you require if you need white color for your plastic parts, then the cost will be 10% more than another color, if you require clear color (transparent molding parts) molding parts, then the cost will be 25-40% high than normal color molded parts. When you need white color molding parts, then the molding shop needs to clean the barrel very well, and not allow any other color max in this injection unit and material, this will take time and waste some material, and the other thing is the waste rate will be increased, that is the reason the white color plastic parts is little high than other colors. When you are looking for transparent molding parts like PC injection molding, or PMMA, PS molding parts, the molding shop needs use special injection unit to produce this type of molding parts, they need to clear the unit barrel very well and use some good quality injection molding machine to produce the clear plastic molding parts, because any tiny molding defects on the transparent molding parts will be easy to identify, so you need to make the best quality molding parts, the waste rate is higher, and need to use the high tech injection molding machine, and all of those are more costly than normal molding production.

Injection molding Color Cost

Cost Estimating mothed for plastic injection mold and molding parts

1. Feature-based estimate

This feature-based cost estimator is for the plastic molding of production quantities (over 10,000 units), where more durable and costly tooling can be used due to its small impact on the per-part cost. The material cost is estimated from the part geometry and uses current material prices. For the production cost, a compatible injection molding machine is selected from a database of over 50 machines and the cycle time is estimated from the part geometry, material properties, and machine specifications. For the tooling cost, a suitable mold base is selected using standard mold dimensions and mold classes, and the required mold machining is estimated from the part geometry and other user specifications. These three costs (material, production, and tooling) are calculated for 4 different cavity arrangements (1, 2, 4, and 8 cavities) and the most cost-effective option is provided.

2. Low volume injection molding cost estimate

This feature-based cost estimator is for the injection molding of low volumes (under 10,000 units), where rapid tooling methods (high-speed machining of Class 104 molds) are used to create the mold due to the large impact on the per-part cost. The material cost is estimated from the part geometry and uses current material prices. For the production cost, a compatible injection molding machine is selected from a database of over 50 machines and the cycle time is estimated from the part geometry, material properties, and machine specifications. For the plastic tooling cost, a suitable mold base is selected using standard mold dimensions, and the required mold machining is estimated from the part geometry and other user specifications. These three costs (material, production, and tooling) are calculated for 4 different cavity arrangements (1, 2, 4, and 8 cavities) and the most cost-effective option is provided.

3. Standard estimate

This standard injection molding cost estimator does not require any part geometry but requires more process parameter inputs to calculate a more accurate estimate. The material cost is estimated from the part and runner volumes, an up-to-date material database with pricing, and customizable process parameters. For the production cost, the cycle time must be specified, as well as the machine rate and labor rates. After adding the mold cost, a detailed cost breakdown is provided for the material, production, and tooling costs.

4. Plastic mold cost estimate

This feature-based cost estimator calculates the mold cost for plastic molding. Based on the part geometry and mold requirements, such as the number of cavities, a suitable mold base is selected using standard mold dimensions. The required mold machining is estimated for the selected SPI mold class and rapid plastic tooling methods may be chosen for a Class 104 mold or so low volume products.

Hope all of that information could help you to get an idea about the cost idea for your project, are you ready to have your project start working on plastic injection molding, welcome to send us your requirement for quotation, we will quote you completely mold and molding price, you will have a complete plan for your project.